I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 83

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 83
What awful luck. Luca furrowed his brow sharply and stepped back.
Both his hands trembled ever so slightly. It was a response beyond his control, but he had endured too much in his life to lose to something so trivial.
Luca tilted his mouth into a crooked smile and shot back.
“Aiden. I’ve thought this for a while now, but you really are unbearably difficult, aren’t you?”
“I know. It’s not something I’ve heard just once or twice. So then—will you do it or not?”
His commander stood at the highest point of the Training Ground. Those violet eyes fixed on him with unmistakable intensity.
Luca stepped forward and deliberately brushed shoulders with Aiden. Aiden, unbothered by the gesture, simply laughed and shrugged.
Ignoring Aiden entirely, Luca addressed Olivia.
“Just this once.”
There had never been exceptions in his life. He had drawn a line and made clear which people stood inside it and which stood without. But today, for the first time, he was about to blur that line.
“The Lux Knight Brigade shall send Luca.”
The commander spoke those words to his opponent.
Members of the Lumen Knights Order, knowing Luca’s origins, bolted to their feet in protest, but Yugin did not retract his words.
Luca walked forward. Behind him, the shadows he had carried all his life stretched long and thin.
* * *
She didn’t believe this would solve everything.
What had accumulated until now could never melt away from a single duel. But at least—wouldn’t this senseless level of violence finally cease?
That was all Olivia wanted right now. Everything else could be changed, one thing at a time.
Olivia watched quietly as Luca climbed to the Training Ground.
She still did not fully understand what circumstances he carried, or why he had shown such hostility toward her. But at the very least, she felt she could grasp why he had offered her that warning.
His grey hair swayed gently with each step. Olivia clenched her fists and watched him with quiet encouragement.
“Why? Worried?”
“Would I be qualified to worry? You’re all far more skilled than I am.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes you underestimate yourself.”
Aiden, who had begun trailing Olivia with his eyes from the moment she’d descended from her own duel, now sidled up beside her as if he’d been waiting for this chance.
“Luca will win.”
“I know that too.”
“Those people will accept you soon enough.”
“Are you worried about losing our bet?”
Aiden had a terrible habit of evading answers whenever things looked grim. True to form, he dodged her question and changed the subject with an easy smile.
“It’s good that it happened.”
“……Senior.”
“It really is good. Truly.”
His face held a serene smile as he said this. Yet the moment Olivia saw it, her heart sank with a dull thud.
Something felt different from usual……
But she had no time to dwell on that strange feeling. Aiden glanced toward the Training Ground where the duel had just begun, and his expression froze. The next instant, he grabbed both her cheeks with sudden intensity.
“Wh—Senior?”
“Hold on. What’s this?”
“Wh—what, what is it?”
“This is a wound, isn’t it? Sena, Sena!”
Aiden’s eyes had transformed into narrow triangles, radiating an ominous aura in all directions. The brigade members witnessing this scrambled backward in alarm, bracing themselves for the calamity about to unfold.
Only Sena approached him, her expression utterly unamused.
“What. Why.”
“Look at this! This is a wound, isn’t it?”
“Where? I don’t see anything.”
“Look properly. Here! Here is red! See? You see it too, right?”
“Where? Here? Hmm. Maybe? Perhaps?”
“You bastards!”
Or was it not? Was this normal after all?
Olivia blinked as she watched Aiden’s body tense as if he might burst out the door at any second.
The sky was blue and the sunlight dazzling. Upon the Training Ground, where the sun blazed as if to ignite the very end of summer, events as vivid and tumultuous as the weather were unfolding.
Crash! Bang!
“Th—the victor of this duel is—”
The duel was over.
“The Lux Knight Brigade!”
It was a decisive victory for the Lux Knight Brigade.
Luca, always so prickly, turned toward his brigade with an expression that looked close to tears.
* * *
In the center of the first floor of the Lux Knight Brigade headquarters stood a large Cafeteria.
When the headquarters was first constructed, quite a few people had frequented this place, but around ten years prior, nobody came anymore.
But now, after a very long time, the lights came on in the Cafeteria.
“Drink up, drink up!”
“Luca, you bastard! What’s wrong with you? You could’ve done it but didn’t?”
“Leave that alone, you idiots. Do you think I’m like you people?”
The aroma of delicious food and the sour scent of Beer filled the Cafeteria.
“Shall we have a celebration dinner tonight? What do you all think?”
“Yes, sir! Absolutely, sir!”
“Then we’ll gather at the Cafeteria. Eli, bring in the cook and the servants.”
The commander’s adjutant was capable, and within mere hours, the Cafeteria that had been empty and cold was transformed into a proper banquet hall.
Yugin opened his own purse. When he sent a servant to fetch expensive dishes, the brigade members stopped him and insisted on a different menu instead.
What they most wanted to eat right now was not something that required courage to purchase, nor delicacies that nobles enjoyed.
“Mmm! Delicious! I wonder what nobles do for fun since they never get to eat this?”
“Hey, Olivia’s listening.”
“It’s fine. I was thinking the same thing.”
Inexpensive meat dishes and sautéed vegetables. In the center of the Cafeteria sat a large pot of Stew, simmering with various vegetables and chunks of meat, while plates of cheap sausage and cheese were passed around near cups of Beer.
This food was quite unfamiliar to Olivia. She had encountered it occasionally during her academy years, but that was all.
She had never had the experience of cooking a large pot of Stew and sharing it among many, nor had she known that one could roughly chop vegetables and meat and boil them into a Stew in mere moments.
This was a different experience from what she had learned in the Academy’s Survival Class.
“Come now, our Olivia is still a student, so have some Grape Juice instead. You there, Bennett! Panya! Don’t touch that Beer!”
“Not even a sip?”
“Stop talking nonsense. Put it down this instant.”
Olivia and her friends were forbidden from drinking. The other members of the Lux Knight Brigade kept vigilant watch, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Panya grumbled, but she didn’t seem to mind having someone fuss over her; there was a genuinely cheerful smile on her face.
The atmosphere around them—something Olivia had never experienced before—felt as if a layer of constraint had been peeled away.
Olivia mixed in with them and reveled in the warmth. Happy laughter and joyful voices made her spirits soar.
Lost in the atmosphere, Olivia sipped at the Grape Juice in her hand.
“Olivia.”
“Oh? Luca?”
“……I wanted to apologize.”
While everyone else was caught up in merriment, someone had quietly taken a seat beside Olivia in the corner.
It was Luca, who had rejected her all this time.
He ran his disheveled grey hair back a few more times, took a sip of his Beer, and finally managed to open his mouth.
“I’m sorry.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————